Weighting Relations in Social Networks Using the Web

Abstract

Measuring the weight of the relation between a pair of entities is necessary to use social networks for various purposes. Intuitively, a pair of entities has a stronger relation than another. It should therefore be weighted higher. We propose a method, using a Web search engine, to compute the weight of the relation existing between a pair of entities. Our method receives a pair of entities and various relations that exist between entities as input. It then outputs the weighted value for the pair of entities. The method explores how search engine results can be used as evidence for how strongly the two entities pertain to the relation.